Vonage going IPO 221
Diashto writes "I just recieved voicemail on my Vonage phone saying that Vonage is going IPO, and that certain customers may be eligible to purchase common stock at IPO pricing. More information is is available on their IPO site."
Re:I'm pretty certain... (Score:2, Interesting)
Think this will work.. the wav of the voicemail recieved.
Re:Sounds great ... but. (Score:5, Interesting)
wow, that's either genuinely paranoid or really self-centered. You think they will read slashdot, correlate your slashdot account to your real name or vonage account name, look up your account, then cut your service?
Sorry dude, but none of us are that important.
Common misconceptions (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, debt is not necessarily a bad thing for businesses; in fact, it's a positive. I won't go into all the details, but suffice to say that it increases the earning power of the money supplied by the shareholders.
Third, debt is a much cheaper form of financing than equity offerings. It's only natural to expect Vonage to use as much debt as is available to them before they launch an IPO. Think of this, also -- with an IPO, the current Vonage stakeholders are giving up a lot of control over their company. So really, the fact that they are conducting an IPO should really raise more questions than the fact that they have a lot of debt.
The Risk No One Is Talking About (Score:2, Interesting)
As for "scam", well, has it occurred to no one else that some scams are "legal"?
Everyone's talking about the financials, the financials, the financials.
What about the people, the people, the people? Specifically: Jeffrey A. Citron, Vonage's founder, chairman and chief strategist seems to have been a very naughty boy in a previous life.
( INFORMATION CONCERNING OUR FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF STRATEGIST [sec.gov]) Hopefully, this bookmark will take you to the exact point in the lengthy document (just about all of which is "fine print") that details a younger Jeffrey's pattern of behavior.
I'll excerpt here:
"During a portion of the time that Mr. Citron was associated with Datek Securities, the SEC alleged that Datek Securities, Mr. Maschler, Mr. Citron and certain other individuals participated in an extensive fraudulent scheme involving improper use of the Nasdaq Stock Market's Small Order Execution System, or SOES."
"The SEC alleged that Mr. Citron and the other defendants accessed the SOES system to execute millions of unlawful proprietary trades, generating tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits."
"To settle the charges, Mr. Maschler, Mr. Citron and the other individuals paid $70 million in civil penalties and disgorgements of profits, of which Mr. Citron paid $22.5 million in civil penalties. These fines were among the largest fines ever collected by the SEC against individuals."
But, maybe there's not too much risk going forward, because:
"In addition, Mr. Citron was enjoined from future violations of certain provisions of the U.S. securities laws, including the antifraud provisions set forth in Section 17(a) of the Securities Act, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated under the Exchange Act."
So, that means that he promised never to do it again, and we can take that to the bank, right?
Enron was all legal
I'm a very satisfied Vonage customer and would probably have chosen to invest, until I saw this information. Would you invest in Kenneth Lay's next venture?
I'm not sure yet what this means to me as a customer. At the very least, I'll be researching my exit strategy and appreciate the various references to Skype and other alternatives.